Wednesday March 11, 2009 Jo Vita

Theme: Crack Up

17A: Broadway moneymaker: SMASH HIT

30A: Blast from the past?: BIG BANG

47A: Soft drink: SODA POP

62A: Launch: BLAST OFF

11D: Bases-loaded homer: GRAND SLAM

35D: Radical food fad: CRASH DIET

Not happy with 30A clue. BLAST is part of the theme answer for 62A. Tell me how you would clue BIG BANG.

The clue for ESS (13D: Part of CBS?) is quite tricky. I thought of SYS first, then EYE. Finally realized ESS refers to the letter S in CBS.

Mary Elson, the Managing Director of Tribune Media Service, emailed me yesterday that TMS will be ending Wayne R Williams syndication puzzle on Sunday March 22, 2009. So, starting on March 23 (Monday) most of the papers that currently have TMS Daily will carry LA Times Daily edited by Rich Norris.

This is a great news for us, as LA Times puzzles are definitely of superior quality. Besides, we can have the same Sunday puzzles to work with. I am aware, however, that some of you might be given a different LA Times Sunday crossword edited by Sylvia Bursztyn. But you can always print out the Rich Norris Sunday puzzle from LA Time's website.

Across:

8A: 1997 20-game winner Denny: NEAGLE. Guessed. Have never heard of this pitcher. He was actually drafted by the Twins in 1989. Wikipedia says his name was mentioned in the Mitchell Report in connection with steroids. Boo!

14A: __ Valley, CA: SIMI. Reagan Library is located here.

19A: Bernhardt and Siddons: SARAHS. SARAH Bernhardt was a French actress nicknamed "The Divine SARAH". SARAH Siddon was a British actress most famous for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth. Of all the SARAHS in the world, our editor wanted these two, absurdly obscure. Boo!

20A: Nautical rescue system: AIR SEA

21A: Cossack chief: HETMAN. No idea. Last time the answer is ATAMAN.

23A: NASA outpost: ISS (International Space Station). Williams like to clue ESA as "NASA's ISS partner".

27A: Mil. honor: DSC (Distinguished Service Cross). I wanted DSM. Wikipedia says DSC is "the second highest military decoration that can be awarded to a member of US Army". What is the highest then? Purple Heart? By the way, DSO (Distingushed Service Order) is the "British military award".

33A: Abominable: ACCURSED. New word to me. Same as CURSED?

36A: Vexed: GALLED. His chutzpah used to GALL me.

38A: Myanmar, by another name: BURMA. Capital city: Yangon. Currency: Kyat. Strange country. Governed by those bloody military juntas. Aung San Suu Kyi needs more than just the glibido from the west for her fight.

41A: Employment: USAGE

44A: Representative examples: EPITOMES

49A: Numerical ending: ETH. "Ordinal suffix" to be exact.

51A: C.S.A. soldier: REB. Opposite Yank?

52A: Actress Meyers: ARI. No idea. Thought ARI is man's name. What's her face shape? Square?

55A: Fanning of "Man on Fire": DAKOTA. She grows up quickly. Her interviews are uniformly boring.

58A: Signaled: CUED IN

64A: Lack of vigor: ANEMIA. Dates help. Lots of irons in dates. Nuts stuffed honeyed dates. Delicious!

65A: NRC forerunner: AEC (1946 to 1975)

66A: Heraldic border: ORLE. Learned this word from doing crossword. What's the difference between heraldry and coat-of-arms?

67A: climber's spikes: PITONS

68A: '60 radicals: SDS. Was this a gimme to you? I keep confusing SDS with '70 radicals SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army).

Down:

1D: Very, in music: ASSAI. "Allegro ASSAI" means very fast. Add one letter L, it becomes the "attack vigorously" ASSAIL.

4D: "Beth" singer: KISS. Here is the clip. Definitely not my style. Any KISS collectors there? Do you have the original KISS bobbleheads?

6D: Colonial cuckoo: ANI. Why "Colonial"?

7D: Prot. sect: METH. The same abbreviation as the drug?

8D: Savings: NEST EGG. Dwindling quickly! My GE stock is now traded at $8 per share. Terrible.

18D: Flights to safety: HEGIRAS. No idea. Dictionary also says that HEGIRA refers to the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina in 622 ad. So it's the starting point of the Muslim era.

29D: Aqua and motor endings: CADES. Aquacade is new to me.

32D: Biographer of FDR: ALSOP. Almost every JFK book I've read mentioned Joseph ALSOP. Are you familiar with General Chenault's Flying Tigers? ALSOP served as Chenault's "Staff Secretary" when they trained in Rangoon, BURMA.

33D: Poplar tree: ABELE. I forgot. What's the difference between ABELE and aspen again?

34D: Flat face of a gem: CULET. No idea. See this digram.

43D: Spanish mates: ESPOSAS. Got the answer from across fills. It's Spanish for "wife". I thought it means "Spouse".

45D: Emetine source plants: IPECACS. I can never remember this word. Their roots contain "emetine", whatever it is.

56D: Sphere starter?: ATMO. Atmosphere.

57D: Down with!: A BAS. Know this from the French Revolutionary cry "A BAS le roi!" Our editor used to clue ABAS as "Arab garments".

61D: Verse starter?: UNI. Universe. "Sex starter?" is also good, yes?

C.C.

Tuesday March 10, 2009 Adele Mann

Theme: Watered Down

17A: Tabloid talk show host: RICKI LAKE

66A: "Young Frankenstein" director: MEL BROOKS

11D: "Enter Talking" writer: JOAN RIVERS

30D: "Caribbean Queen" singer: BILLY OCEAN

Those people are ALL WET!

I am not familiar with RICKI LAKE. JOAN RIVERS is too much for me, so acerbic her tongue. Her daughter Melissa is equally intimidating. BILLY OCEAN revealed himself after I filled in all the crosses.

I suppose there is no famous people with surnames like LAKES or OCEANS, the plural form? I really liked the theme though.

To those whose paper has stopped carrying TMS Daily puzzle. You can go to Chicago Tribune's website. Click on the date, then pick Regular Skill Level or Master Skill Level. You can always print out the puzzles if you prefer to solve it in paper. Click on Print, then Blank Puzzle.

To those LA Times solvers, you can get all the answers in their website. And if you have questions regarding certain clues, please feel free to ask in the Comments section. Argyle will guest-blog one LA Times puzzle this Sunday.

I also published a "How to Create a Link at Comments section" earlier this morning. It's not difficult at all. You just need some practices.

Across:

9A: Hindu ruler: RAJAH. Or Raja.

15A: Regan's father: LEAR. Also Cordelia/Goneril's father. Don't google, tell me who is Hero's love?

23A: Chants: LITANIES. Reminds me of McCain's "Drill, Baby, Drill" chant. It's coined by Michael Steele, not Sarah Palin, who can see Russia from her house.

32A: Provencal verse: SESTINA. My guess is SESTINE, which is actually correct also. So is SEXTINA. It's a six-stanza verse. A poetic form used by Dante, Kipling, Ezra Pound, etc.

39A: Show-biz notable: CELEB. Hope to see CELEB with PAPARAZZI in a grid someday.

43A: Quantity of yarn: SKEIN. Last time it's clued as "V-formation flock" and stumped lots of solvers. A SKEIN of geese.

49A: Thwarts: STYMIES. I like "Thwarts", with three consonants together.

51A: Mushroom morsel: CAP. Hmmm, mushroom, MOREL. How long is that? CAP can also be clued as "Climax", yes?

55A: Achieve success: GET AHEAD

58A: Ridiculous pretense: CHARADE

64A: Trample: TREAD. Dislike the TR repetition. With today's "Wet" theme, "TREAD water" is better.

71A: Sound qualities: TONES. Musical term? I was thinking of SONES, the "Loudness unit".

73A: Cut: SAWN. Always thought the past particle of SAW is SAWED.

Down:

1D: Razor choice: ATRA. Gillette is part of P & G, so is Duracell & Oral-B.

7D: Like some buckets: OAKEN. I learned this morning that most of the old ship were made of oak wood due to its hardness, strength and resistance to insect and fungal attack. Had no idea that oak trees do not produce acorns until they are 50 years old.

8D: Concise summary: PRECIS. Without the intersecting P, I might have filled in APERCU. It has 6 letters also.

13D: First part of a bray: HEE. HEE-Haw.

18D: Egyptian goddess: ISIS. The Egyptian goddess of fertility. The wife/sister of Osiris. JD, there is letter "I" in modern interpretation of Egyptian glyphs after all. (Note: Here is a great link JD provided.)

26D: "Strange Interlude" playwright: O'NEILL. Easy guess. I've never heard of "Strange Interlude".

27D: Purple dinosaur: BARNEY. Not familiar with this character either. Why "Purple"? It looks pink to me. Vikings' uniforms are "Purple" color. Brett Favre in Vikings uniform? Liar!

28D: Bigot: RACIST. I watched Ed Norton's "American History X" the other day, kind of shocked by what I saw.

33D: Seize: TAKE. Thought of RAID first. Police do "Seize" stuff when they conduct a RAID, right?

40D: Military units: BRIGADES. I suppose their head is called brigadier.

50D: Flower part: STAMEN. Flowers' male organ. So tiny. It bears sufficient pollens I suppose. The white stuff on top is the anther. No wonder the word has MEN in its tail.

52D: Carson's predecessor: PAAR. Double A. The double R wife of Henry VIII is PARR (Catherine).

57D: Trivial stuff: DROSS. I don't understand this clue. "Worthless stuff", yes. "Trivial stuff" means "small matter", no?

62D: Place at an angle: SKEW. Here is a word where you can't simply add an ER without changing its original meaning. Skewer. I like shrimp pineapple shish-kebab, don't you?

65D: Greek letter: RHO. The 17th Greek letter. Consonant.

C.C.